


only holy devotion can keep the devils away

by manticoremoons



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Dark, Dark Daenerys Targaryen, Dark Jon Snow, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Incest, Jon Snow Knows Something, Jon Snow is a Targaryen, Shameless Smut, Smut, also in which jon is not as blinkered and daft about treachery and politricks as ned, also there's a reason why these two's words are TOGETHER and TRUTH, because come on we were all thinking they should fuck in that broken down throne room, but here we are, he knows when he's being manipulated, i refuse to allow d&d to take that away from jon and dany, in which jon never forgets that he fell in love with a goddamn dragon queen, like he may be cosplaying his daddy all his life but he's not stupid, or in simple terms jon gets scared and horny watching the woman he loves do the empress thing, the resolution of love is the death of duty (duty the death of love) was not meant to be dumb, unbeta'd sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-17 10:11:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18963157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manticoremoons/pseuds/manticoremoons
Summary: A mother. Amonster. A storm-born conqueror.She is all those things, and more. The woman he fell in love with. The woman he loves, still. Though it shames him to admit it. But perhaps most shocking of all is that he stillwants.





	only holy devotion can keep the devils away

**Author's Note:**

> I have forgotten how to write, so this is me getting my feet wet a bit. Mistakes are mine and will do my best to catch them.
> 
> So, that season happened. Good lord. I rebuke so much of Season 8 but perhaps most of all in 8x06, I rebuke this idea that Jon doesn't understand the bloodiness and brutality of war. He doesn't love it or revel in it, obviously, but he's not naive about it at all, he's a bloody warrior! Read end notes about what else I rebuke. 
> 
> This story started with me imagining Jon getting aroused watching Dany wield her power and captivate her armies with her rousing speech. He's no idea what she's saying but Jon knows he fell in love with a Dragon Queen, and he's seeing her in her full form for the first time. It scares him as much as it compels him, disgusts him as much as it thrills him. My mind just works like that because of reasons. Anyway, so then that turned into this. 
> 
> Title from "Nightshade" by the Lumineers for no special reasons.

    
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was a time when Jon could lose himself in battle. Allow the berserker’s bloodlust that lives inside him to overtake him, drive him to a stupor of killing, losing himself in the way his sword could cut through skin and bone, drip with blood of every enemy. He’d never felt joy at doing it, at killing, but there was a simplicity to it, to merely surviving, that he’s always understood.

But not so this time.

Perhaps there’s only room for one dragon in a battle, and she’s done all the killing for them.

So much killing.

He’s known war for more than half his life. But perhaps the only time he’s seen such unrelenting ruin was beyond the Wall, at places like Hardhome where the Night King and his army left naught but death, fear and grief in their wake.

He keeps his eyes turned away from Ser Davos as they make their way through the streets, feeling a little ashamed of what he might see in the man’s heartbroken face. Flea Bottom remains relatively unscathed, the poorest of the city, he knows. It’s a small mercy in the face of everything else. He has no words.

After he confronts Grey Worm in the midst of the queen's commander executing surrendered soldiers, he feels a bilious rage in his bowels.  He almost cuts the man down where he stands but he knows it would be foolish, surrounded as he and Davos are, by her men.

The worst thing is he _understands_ the decision, he knows the dangers that lurk in leaving room for potential conspirators and traitors all too well. Lannisters, even the ones cowering in the dirt and soot, cannot be trusted. Examples will need to be made. But after all of this brutality and bloodshed, even he, a lifetime warrior, is tired of it all.

When will it end? _How_?

 

## †

 

When he feels himself harden under his sweat-sticky armour and leather, he knows he’s fucked.

He _should_ be afraid of her. Horrified, even.

Her commanding voice seems to swell and fill the Red Keep’s terrace, each word soaring into the skies above and reverberating against the walls, the energy of them fizzling through the blood of every person that listens. There’s a crackling in the air as the Dothraki screamers raise their voices in the ecstasy of a post-battle high and the Unsullied beat their spears to the ground, the vibrations rumbling under his feet. An ominous sense of something more, something _greater_ , coming for all of them and swallowing them whole.

_Daenerys._

For someone so tiny, her presence overflows the entire dais where she stands. Her seemingly innocuous form wrapped in black and red leather, her eyes alight with the fire of her passion. She’s beautiful in a way that he finds almost difficult to look upon directly, like the gods from Old Nan’s tales who’d strike a man blind if he dared to gaze at them. She’s always been that way now that he thinks on it.

Blood runs through the streets of King’s Landing, smoke billows from every crumbling rooftop. He’d been down there mere minutes ago, walking through the ash-strewn streets of a city that once stood, through the charred corpses of mothers with their babies, men with their women, their faces unrecognisable except for the rictus of terror sculpted there for eternity. He'd seen the injured staggering drunkenly or simply lying in the rubble hoping for help or death, their skin covered in livid boils and weals, blood and pus seeping from the wounds. The air had been thick with a stench of burned meat and he had felt the urge to pause and vomit more than once.

He had felt horror, certainly. Disgust for the devastation she— _they_ all—had wrought. For he cannot absolve himself from this no matter how hard he might try.

 _You are my queen_ , he’s said more times than he can count. And even now, those words sink into his gut with a warm and welcome certainty. _She is_.

But she is also many other things.

A mother. A _monster_. A storm-born conqueror.

She is all those things, and more. The woman he fell in love with. The woman he loves, still. Though it shames him to admit it. But perhaps most shocking of all is that he still _wants_.

For weeks he’s tried. Told himself every reason why laying with his aunt is wrong and wicked, an affront to the Old Gods and the new. But his cock never cared. (Nor has his heart, if he’s honest).

He’d spent many a wintry night after Sam told him the truth of their relation rubbing himself raw with the thought of her, burying his wanton groans in his pillow while he fucked his own fist and dreamed of ploughing her depths like a savage. That night after the Battle of Winterfell, after his weak self had given in to her sweet, drugging kisses before pushing her away, he’d lasted all of five minutes after she left his rooms before splattering all over his bedclothes like an untried boy.

And now here he stands, watching her. _Aegon the Conqueror with teats_ , or so the stories had called her before. Yet she is a conqueror in her own right, no need to name her forebears.

He’s got no idea what she’s saying. He’d never had a talent for foreign tongues, and the only Valyrian and Dothraki he knows are the words she utters in the throes of passion—

He has denied himself of her body, of their passion for so long that even the scant memory makes his already half-hard groin swell even further.

It’s a sickness, this feeling. Surely it has to be?

But he can’t help himself. All he can think about is how good it would feel to fuck her right now on the terrace for anyone to see. Amidst the ruin of her—of their—family’s ancient castle, the scarlet-red Targaryen banners fluttering victoriously on the walls above them, the stench of burning and ash mingling in with the musk of their bodies working together to completion.

When she turns to him and smiles drawing him into the all-encompassing warmth of her charisma, her lips a slash of bloody red, smears of soot on her chin and cheek that make her all the more endearing and lovely and _terrifying_ —he can do nothing but smile back like a fool.

## †

_And you have to choose now._

He wasn’t the fool Tyrion appeared to believe he was.

To his credit, the Imp had been as persuasive as ever during their conversation in the dank prisoner’s cell deep in the bowels of the Red Keep.

Talking to Tyrion was rather like being drawn into a labyrinthine spider’s web, each word weaving into the next with a dangerous precision that could tangle even the sharpest of minds. But underneath it all, Jon smelled the acrid stink of fear in the youngest Lannister, the _last_ of all the Lannisters.  

He was afraid of Dany and of death. As much as he tried to play it off with silly quips and requests for wine, there had been a tremor in his voice as he spoke. As he laid down every argument to save his own skin.

Four years ago, Jon would have fallen for it all without hesitation.

_You are the shield that guards the realms of men._

All these years later, and those vows are as real to him as they were on the day he swore them. But he is no longer a man of the Night’s Watch, and he has made other more pressing vows.

Tyrion had known all the right things to say that might inspire him to commit treason. And if Jon was younger, and perhaps more stupid, he would have followed his suggestions as blindly as a puppet led on a string. If he had not tasted the bitterness of a traitor’s blade in his chest, he might have obeyed the impulse to rush headlong without question. He might have taken the knife Arya slipped into his cloak, and made his way to the throne room, and slipped it in her ribs like a craven.

_You’ve always tried to do the right thing, no matter the cost. You’ve always tried to protect people._

But Tyrion had forgotten what Daenerys meant to him. What this woman—this elemental force of a woman, fire made flesh, _meant to him_. This woman who had ridden fearlessly into the bowels of Death for him, to protect _him_. Who’d given every part of herself without asking for anything in return, allowed him to hold her precious fragile heart in his own clumsy fingers to do with it what he wilt.

Aye, it was a _terrible thing_ he asked. An impossible thing.

For Maester Aemon had been right.

Love is the death of duty, and duty the death of love. But in Dany, Jon had found a conflagration of those two ideals that thrummed within him in equal measure. She had given those words meaning they had not held before.

 _I know you love her. Love is more powerful than reason_ , the Dwarf had said as if those words were real to him. Tyrion had told him one night many moons ago about the woman—his love—whom he had killed in cold blood, strangled to death while she lay with his father.

What kind of man could do that? Could such a man truly know love?

Jon has known the wretchedness of lying in a pool of his own blood. It would kill him to become such to a woman who has only loved him.

_And your sisters._

Tyrion had reminded him. Once again, Jon had wondered if the whole realm thought him to be a slack-mouthed dullard. To be so foolish, so _unable_ to reason for himself, that he could fall prey to the most biased of wiles and argumentations. _And your sisters_. Oh, he had not forgotten about his _sisters_. The one sister who had betrayed his trust, who had broken a vow made before a Heart Tree. His other sister, his most dear, who would goad him into killing his kin, the woman he loved.

Perhaps Jon had been gone too long from his beloved family but it seemed that they urged him to do things unworthy of people who were called such. Like Tyrion, they didn’t care that _he_ would be the one to live with the terrible weight of being both kinslayer and queenslayer for the rest of his days. That _he_ would hang from the gibbet for his crime. Or, if there was some mummer’s mercy, he might live out his life in a prison or at what was left of the Wall, haunted by nightmares and praying for death to claim him so he could be with his love again.

_No, there had to be some other way._

## †

 

“Be with me. Build the new world with me.”

There is so much love in her eyes as she says it, such sureness, and he can’t help but be drawn to it. It’s a feeling he hasn’t felt often in his life—if ever—of acceptance, of hope, of _belonging_. It is more terrifying and wonderful than anything else. Her fingers flutter against his chin, gently beckoning him closer, and he does lean in until he can feel her dragon’s breath warm on his lips as she speaks.

“Since you were a little boy with a bastard’s name, and I was a little girl who couldn’t count to twenty. We do it together. We break the wheel together.”

He remembers Tyrion’s words, and they taunt him now even as his hand rests on the elaborately-carved handle of the knife Arya gave him. It would be easy at this distance to carry out his dark purpose. He could kiss her or kill her, the scales hang in the balance.

He lets out a ragged breath, his shoulders shaking with it as he takes in the sweet curve of her mouth. A smile so open and lovely, it makes his heart clench.

_Do you think I’m the last man she’ll execute? Who is more dangerous than the rightful heir to the Iron Throne._

Yet here he has his answer. _We do it together._

Dany has been so many things to him in the short time he’s known and loved her—stranger, enemy, sovereign, saviour, lover, aunt—but _never_ a liar. Yet every other person in his life has proven themselves false, time and again. But never her.

 Even when he was running from her, hiding deep in his denial of them and these feelings, she has stood firm and loved him.

As he looks into her eyes, and sees nothing but Truth—

He _chooses_.

## †

 _Yes_.

Her lips taste of burnt sugar. He licks into her mouth like a man dying of thirst, and drinks.

 _Yes_.

The whimper that escapes her sets him on fire, and he draws her up as close as he can get through the layers of her armour and bites at her lips. It’s a savage, primal urge to have her now and to be had. There is an honesty in this, too.

He doesn’t think about the dead city outside, about the Imp awaiting death in his cell, the dragon blanketed by ice by the door, but only this thing that burns between them now. He lifts her into his arms with ease, and she wraps her legs around his waist, never once letting go of each other’s mouths.

The nearest solid pillar, or perhaps it’s the remnants of the castle’s wall (he can’t be bothered to check), is where he sets her down and leans her back so his fingers can make quick work of her coat and the dress underneath. Her silk shift is no match for the tug that rips it in two, baring her to his eyes from neck to navel. He takes one dusky rose nipple into his mouth and draws on it hungrily, cupping her other teat in his rough, blood-stained hand.

She moans, and it echoes in the carcass of their family’s keep. The thought enflames him further with a sense of rightness, and he trails his lips further down her soft belly with intent.

“No,” she stops his descent, and he looks up at her with a slightly disappointed frown. He’d wanted to drink his fill, to fuck her with his tongue until her cries echoed through the whole of King’s Landing.

She’s breathing so heavily her plump breasts tremble, and he can’t help but watch them hypnotised. Feathery wisps of ash fall across her pale skin like snow drifts, and it’s oddly fetching to look at.

“I want you to take me—right here,” she says, a smirk on her pretty mouth. “In front of that ugly throne, in front of all the ghosts that live in this keep, in front of the gods, too. _Take_ _me_.”

Who is he to refuse such a command? And so he murmurs, baring his teeth at her like the wolf he is, “As my queen desires.”

He doesn’t bother trying to remove his armour, simply shoving at his trousers and small clothes while she lifts her skirts up high around her waist and hooks one booted foot around the back of his to pull him in close.

Testing her readiness, he slips his fingers between her legs, and strokes her silky-wet centre. She’s dripping for it already, and the feel of how easy it is to slip one, two fingers inside her, makes his cock hard enough that it aches. She rides his hand, gasping as he rubs at her pearl with his thumb.

He pulls his fingers out, and brings them up to his mouth, tastes cinders and the metallic flavour of blood, he’s got no idea whose, and her addictive sweetness.

The look she gives him as she watches him clean his fingers off is heated enough to singe. But he’s a dragon, too, he can take whatever fire she flings at him.

Yanking at her leg so her thigh notches on his hip and opens her to him, he takes himself in hand, and nudges his cock against her folds, and then he’s sliding inside that perfect cunt. He doesn’t stop until he’s buried to the hilt, and both of them groan at the suddenness of it.

He rests his forehead against hers as he starts to fuck her, their breath mingling in the scant space between their mouths, a half-kiss. Slow at first, but faster with each snap of his hips.

She’s never been one to hold back and it’s no different now. She grunts and whimpers, pulls at him as if it would be possible to fuse their two bodies together, cries out in a mixture of languages to spur him on.

He’s already riding along the edge of pleasure, it’s _that_ good. He bends his knees a little more so he can really lunge into her and find that spot that makes her eyes roll to the back of her head. The slap of skin-on-skin, the loud slurp of his cock inside her fills the room.

“Kostilus, _kostilus_ ,” she begs. The most powerful woman in the world asking him to make her come, and he obliges her. He pushes his hand in between them so he can pluck at her clit, he swipes his tongue along her chin, licks at her mouth and then bites her lower lip hard enough to draw blood.

That’s all it takes and she’s coming, the clutch and release of her inner muscles drawing his climax from him too and he fills her with his seed.

He leans into her, trapping her against the pillar, while they both catch their breath. She cradles him to her, her fingers playing at the hair at his nape while the aftershocks ripple between them.

He’s never felt so safe, so _right_. A strange thing to think but he thinks it all the same.

Everyone will call her mad, of course. And perhaps he’s mad too for loving her. He doesn’t much care.

 

## †

 

Later, they will tidy themselves up as best as possible in between lingering kisses and half-embarrassed giggles as they recall what they’ve done in this sacred spot where kings have come and gone for hundreds of years. They will make their way out of the throne room hand-in-hand.

Later still, he will watch as she executes the Queen’s Justice and the Dwarf of Casterly Rock is no more. It’s with some sorrow that he will watch and she feels it too, for she had loved Tyrion even more than him. But in this they agree. If she didn’t do it, he’d do it himself. There will be no room for treachery in this new world of theirs.

His one sister will disappear that night, never to be heard from again. They’ll say she left to see what’s west of Westeros. He’ll just be grateful that he doesn’t have to make a choice. His other sister will retreat up North with Bran, to be dealt with in due time. She will be made to see reason and if she cannot, _well_.

They will walk into the city, and take stock of the ruins. And even in the midst of crafting plans for the future, she’ll weep at all of the senseless loss of life, at her hand in it.

“All I wanted was to plant trees, and look. Look what I’ve done….”

He’ll do what he can to ensure it never happens again. They both will. The other cities in Westeros don’t put up much of a fight against the last dragons, at least. None of them want to become a ghost story like King’s Landing.

And well after, when the dream of Spring comes true, when the first flowers start to bloom, he’ll rest his hand on her swollen belly and look out into the realm they’re building together, still scarred and a little broken but living, and he’ll smile.

**Author's Note:**

> A comment or a kudos is always kind.
> 
> I also rebuke this idea that he doesn't know when he's being played like a fiddle by people Tyrion or his Stark family. Jon is a man who experienced the worst of betrayals, he died for it. There is no way he would let himself be talked into stabbing the woman he loves in such a craven way. Not when he knows exactly what that feels like. And not when he does have some inkling of the games people like Tyrion play, no matter how much of a northern fool he is. Sansa just got done betraying an oath she made to him, he ain't a damn fool. Book!Jon would certainly not be here for that kind of mess, and I firmly believe even season 7 Jon would be the same on that front. 
> 
> I rebuke a lot of things but let me not forget to add: medieval characters engaged in medieval warfare with mega machines of destruction are not going to be framing this kind of warfare in modern liberal terms. The show lost that understanding the last few seasons and we have characters like Tyrion all but quoting the Geneva Convention every time Dany blinks. Not saying what she did was right, it's fucked up. But all the hand-wringing and moral gymnastics they had Tyrion or Varys doing was beyond the pale.


End file.
